I hope that someone will create that database. It's desperately needed. NOW.

All of us are vulnerable. All of us live in fear. So many causes, so little help when the curtain falls.

As I cope with several serious health issues, I wonder how I will cope when the doctor tells me that there is nothing else. Will I be as brave? Who knows.

is Breast Cancer Action out of San Francisco.

You can join their organization at http://bcaction.org/

They too complain about how Susan G Komen accepts huge amounts of money, but little of the donations are sent off to the types of researchers who would actually perhaps make a dent in the disease.

And the absolute absurdity of companies that produce toxic products but can put that pink ribbon on their products so we consumers can feel good about the toxins while our bodies have to dealt with the injuries caused by the products.

Laurie

Maybe someday the oligarchs and their minions
will stop poisoning us and the earth so our bodies no longer accept cancer as a living destructive force in our bodies. I, as a survivor of breast cancer, say to them stop your madness! Let us LIVE our lives in peace, compassion and health!

She was given DES in 1957/8 while pregnant with me.

I just mentioned to a friend how many obits read, "a courageous battle with cancer" lately.

for sharing your truth with us. rest in peace, laurie becklund.

my grandma died an excruciating death from metastatic cancer. she never told anyone until the time came she could not get out of her bed. she refused any treatment or hospital care. we all did what we could to keep her comfortable. my mother was the person who daily took loving care of her mother-in-law.

personally, i share laurie becklund's perception of the k foundation. i reject breast cancer. "cancel!" i shout "cancel!" - every time i see that fucking pink ribbon and the k name. i have never donated a cent to them.

i believe more in healthy lifestyle prevention practices and thousands of years of proven indigenous alternative therapies than anything a pharmaceutical corporation "patents".

petition signed.

I feel very fortunate to have survived two "bouts" with breast cancer. But I also feel it is one of the great tragedies of our time that after all the years of research and dollars spent we are not even close to a "cure." Did I or my doctors do something right that Laurie Becklund or her doctors didn't do? How would we know? We're told "early detection" helps; I had mammograms, sonograms, pet scans and biopsies before the second cancer was spotted. "Don't smoke". I have never smoked. "Genetic make-up." No one in my family has had breast cancer as far as I know. "Toxic environment." I have lived in one of the cleanest environments in the US for the last 40 years. "Hormonal treatment will prevent recurrence." It didn't. And so on.

The point is that I nor anyone I know who has had cancer and survived (or died) has been part of any comprehensive data collection. I had a good surgeon with Kaiser Permanente who has done breast cancer surgery for years but I did not feel he, Kaiser, or I had enough information to make the best decisions about diagnosis, treatment or vulnerability.

A comprehensive data base is the least we owe Laurie, the 40,000 women who die each year of breast cancer, and our daughters and granddaughters, all of whom are at risk.

Yes, a comprehensive data base is the least we owe to all women.

Time for all of us to get busy with this..

As a 2x breast cancer survivor, over the years, friends and family have given me a number of pink ribbons and other items associated with Komen. I've given them all away to Goodwill and asked people not to do that anymore as Komen is anti-women's health and I don't want to represent them in any shape form or fashion. American Cancer Society helped me out so much, I ask people to donate to them in my name instead of purchasing those awful Komen trinkets.

The wonderful nurse navigator at the cancer center gave me a great travel bag with a notebook for tracking appointments, a book on breast cancer and a small pillow with pink ribbons all over it. When we got in the car, I handed it to my mom and asked her to keep those blasted pink ribbons away from me. Then and now, I don't ever want to see another one. Komen redefines graft. Fuck them.